This chapter is from the book

This chapter is from the book

Hour 3: Setting Standard Preferences

With your Movable Type software installed successfully on your Web server,
you're ready to create a weblog and configure it for yourself (and any
other site administrators) as well as your site visitors.

This hour focuses on giving you step-by-step assistance with getting your preferences
managed. You'll learn how to

Set up a weblog in Movable Type

Modify log preferences

Manage personal preferences

Set user preferences

Setting Up a Weblog in Movable Type

Movable Type is powerful in that a single installation will allow you to run
multiple weblogs. For this hour, you'll focus on adding one log, setting
its preferences, and modifying it at a basic level.

Doing this will give you a foundation upon which to build a log as you work
through the book. Your work in this hour will also hone your skills for building
additional logs later on.

Logging In and Setting Profile Preferences

In the last hour, you stopped after you logged in to the Movable Type main
welcome screen that was generated during your successful install. It's at
this screen that building a weblog begins. You have to log in to Movable Type,
and upon login work with several important screens to set the various
preferences necessary to create and customize the logat least at a
preliminary level.

So the first step is to log in to your installation of Movable Type, and then
we'll move through some exercises specifically geared toward setting
preferences.

Logging In to Movable Type for the First Time

To perform your first login to Movable Type, follow these steps:

Point your browser to the Movable Type install on your server as follows,
replacing the fake URL with your own:

http://www.myserver.com/mt/mt.cgi

Upon reaching the Movable Type sign-in page, you'll see the Username
text box. Into the box, type the name Melody.

You'll now be in the Main Menu screen of Movable Type, ready to set up
your own profile and create your first log. But before you do that, let's
take a moment to review the various options found on the Main Menu page at this
point.

If you examine Figure 3.2, you'll
see the Main Menu screen. Along the top of the page, you see the Movable Type
logo, and a top navigation bar offering Menu, Help, and Logout buttons. The
Menu button will take you to this page from other pages, and Help and Logout
are self-explanatory.

You also have a drop-down menu of your Movable Type logs, although at this
point in the process you should only see one available, "First
Weblog," because you haven't created a log of your own just yet.
You'll also see a field for the User, in this case "Melody,"
which you'll change to customize to your name and preferences.

In the main body of the page, you'll see a menu on the left side, under
the title "Your Existing Weblogs." This menu allows you to perform
additions and modifications to posts and attributes of the log itself.

Along the right portion of the main page, you see five options, most of which
will be used in this hour to set and edit preferences.

These options consist of the following:

Create New Weblog. This option takes you to a page where you can
create new logs on your server.

Add/Edit Weblog Authors. This option enables you to manage all
people who are allowed to create entries using your Movable Type site. You can
add, modify, and delete author entries from this section, as well as set
permissions. You'll learn more about how to manage authors in Hour 8,
"Managing Multiple Authors."

Edit Your Profile. In this section you can change passwords,
contact information, and language preferences.

View Activity Log.This section allows you to monitor
system activity. It's a handy tool that you'll want to check in with
from time to time. In fact, if you click on it now, you'll see an entry
about your recent login as "Melody."

Set Up Bookmarklets.In this section, you can set up a
means of one-click, remote posting and publishing to your site, and configure
the utility to do this. You'll learn more about Bookmarklets in Hour 4,
"Adjusting Your Editing Preferences. "

Setting Your Personal Preferences

It's time to dive into establishing your own identity on the system.

To establish your own user name and password, follow these steps:

From the menu choices on the right side of the page, click Edit Your Profile.
This will take you to your personal profile page (see Figure
3.3).

In the Username field, highlight the name "Melody" and type over
it with your preferred user name.

If you'd like to use a nickname instead of your name for posts, add
it to the Nickname field. You can also just add your name again.

In the Email Address text field, add your preferred email address.

If you have a personal Web site unrelated to the log, or another section
of the site where the log resides, you may want to enter the URL in the
Website URL text field.

You'll note a Preferred Language drop-down option. Default is currently
set to US English, which you'll be able to modify later.

In the Change Your Password field, enter your desired password. Enter it
again in the Password Confirm text field.

Add your birthplace in the Birthplace text field. Movable Type has a handy
built-in password recovery system that will send you your password via email
should you forget it.

Click the Save button at the bottom of the page. Movable Type will return
a page that says the following:

Your User ID, password, and login preferences are set! You can now log
out of Movable Type.

CAUTION

Because this is the first activity you'll do that writes to the database
directory you created in Hour 2, "Installing Movable Type," any errors
introduced in the mt.cfg file can cause a problem. If you get an error
that indicates the database (db) directory is unavailable, go back to
Hour 2 and troubleshoot, using the instructions for the mt.cfg file and
creation of the db directory.

Creating Your First Log and Setting Core Preferences

With your personal preferences set, it's now time to create your first
weblog.

To do so, follow these steps:

If you are not logged into Movable Type, do so now. If you are still on
the Edit Your Profile page, click the Menu button on the top navigation
bar to return to the Main Menu screen.

Click the Create New Weblog option. This will bring you to the Create New
Weblog interface (see Figure 3.4).
This will also open a help file in a separate window, which you can use
for reference.

In the first field, Weblog Name, enter the name of your log. This can be
anything you want it to be, and you can change it at any time.

In the second field, Local Site Path, you'll add the path to where
your log will reside. Remember, in Hour 2 you set up this directory, so
you'll want to point to it specifically. The path will depend upon
where you placed your content directory.

In the Site URL field, enter the site's URL, such as http://www.molly.com/.
But don't add any filenames here, just the URL.

In the Local Archive Path field, you can set up a path for archives. You
can leave this as is for now, as you will learn more about archives in Hour
6, "Managing Archives."

Similarly, in the Archive URL field, you can set up the URL now if you
know what it's going to be, or leave it as is until you get to Hour
6.

Now select your Time Zone from the drop-down menu. This should be the Time
Zone where you are located, not your Web server, which may well be somewhere
else.

Click Save to save your changes.

At this point, Movable Type will save your changes and present you with the
Rebuild link shown in Figure 3.5. In
order to make your changes live, you'll have to select the Rebuild link.
You can also wait until all of your preferences are set before rebuildingit's
entirely up to you. There's a step at the very end of this hour where you'll
rebuild the site, which can be used as a guide if you'd like to rebuild
nowor when you get to that exercise.